Replies to: ED I, ED II, application numbers, acceptance rate, etc

There were 570 acceptances out of a pool of "over 1600" applicants per GW for ED I this year. If you use 1600, the acceptance rate was 35.6%. This is significantly lower than the ED acceptance rate for ED in previous years. ( I think ED acceptance rate was previously around 66% and overall acceptance rate around 37%)
There were around 1600 ED II applicants this year, but acceptances haven't been released yet.

If these number are indeed correct, and GWU sticks to the original plan for accepting only 900 for the total ED I + II, then the acceptance rate for the total ED is 900/3200 = 28%. Worse yet, acceptance rate for ED II = (900-570)/(3200-1600) = 23%.

Note that they announced that the total applications for this year is about the same as last year (3% increase) (though ED application number went up significantly). This means that overall acceptance rate will remain about the same as last year, and the RD acceptance rate will be HIGHER than the ED acceptance rate.

What this means is, ED applicants are PENALIZED for applying early, which is totally contrary to what EVERY college/university does: usually, ED application is a quid pro quo: you commit early to us so that we can boot our yield, and your odds are better during the ED cycle than RD.

Combine this with the unusual ED practice GWU has: only acceptance and rejection, NO deferral.

This completely screws up everything. My guess is, they will NOT stick to the original claim that they will keep the ED acceptance to 900 total, and will adjust up the number of acceptances they will give to ED II, and ED II acceptance rate will be much higher than the ED I acceptance rate.

Whichever way you look at it, this year kids who applied early got completely short changed - without deferral, this really makes the whole situation rather a farce.

I think GWU bet that the surging application number for the ED I will be replicated for ED II and RD application, and this did not happen. As a result, they ended up creating a situation where applying early and showing commitment to school came with a heavy penalty for the students.

It really makes me wonder whether this level of volatility will make them rethink about accept/reject/no deferral policy of their ED administration.

This year: total ED application: 2285. ED I: 1600. ED II: 685. so far, the ED I acceptance rate is ~36% If they keep the total ED acceptances at around 900 like last year, then the ED II acceptance rate is something like: 370/655 = 56%, which is in a ball park from the last year's aggregate ED acceptance rate.

Whichever way you look at it, this year, they mis-projected what the total application number will be like, and ended up completely penalizing ED I applicants. This is even worse than it sounds since they don't defer ED applicants: just accept or reject. This is really a shame, since ED, by design, is supposed to "reward" the commitment the applicants show for the school early on.

additional point: this year, total application number went up by about 400. ED I application went up by 340. This means, almost entirety of their increase in the application number came from the ED I pool.

They thought the ED I pool increase would be replicated through the ED II and RD cycle, and probably thought that the proper number of the acceptances for ED I is about the same number as last year. In the end, this mis projection resulted in much lower acceptance rate for ED I kids than should have been.

Thanks, Lizmane. That makes much more sense and was what I was coming up with. So EDII kids make out a lot better than ED1 does, if they keep the numbers they are showing. And ED1 doesn't help in acceptance vs. RD. Wonder if it will change how folks treat applications next year.

I don't think they will repeat the mistake with ED I next year. I think this is an aberration. I think they just got over excited about the overall application number going up, and did not take into the account that the total application number is more or less stable, and the ED I jump is due to the fact that more students who would apply RD just shifted their application timing. They will be much more careful next year not to be over excited about the early numbers.

This is no consolation for the ED I kids that were rejected even though they may have had a better chance with RD. Furthermore, it is probable that in order to keep the balance between the aggregate ED acceptance rate vs. RD acceptance rate at a more "acceptable" range, they will further boost the ED II acceptance rate. This year, ED I kids are DEFINITELY short changed vis a vis ED II kids. It's completely opposite to what ED applicants are assuming and the unwritten agreement between the school and the students when they apply ED.

I think I remembering reading on GWU website that this years class may be smaller... since I can not find the article I may be mistake, however if I am to find the article I will be sure to post a link.

I don't think GW assumed RD numbers would rise by a similar percentage as ED. Last year their ED numbers skyrocketed from the previous year as well but the RD remained about stable. So they have history plus very good enrollment managers to guide their planning. Final official acceptance numbers have obviously not been released yet so all of the above is purely speculation and I really can't believe that ED applicants will wind up having been penalized.

we already know that the ED 1 acceptance rate this year was something like 36-37% (570 out of 1600)

Various web sites have statistics regarding admissions, but they don't say which year the stats are about. Some web sites are slow in updating their numbers and indeed numbers are slightly different in different web sites. However, one thing consistent is that, for ED due on before Dec (in the case of GWU, that would be ED 1), all the web sites are reporting the GWU acceptance rate in the range of 55-60%

Whichever way you look at it, the 20% difference in the acceptance rate for the ED I kids this year and the ED kids in previous years is very hard to explain.

The only way the school can say it was still advantageous to apply early this year would be, if their total application number had gone through the roof and the total acceptance rate dips below 20% (as opposed to 37% historical rate): then the ED 1 acceptance rate of 36% is much better than the total acceptance rate of 20%. However, this is NOT going to happen since their total application number went up by only 3%. Even if they increase the yield a bit, the picture does not change much.

There is NO doubt that this year, a strange thing happened: the ED I kids are at best on par with the RD kids in terms of the odds of getting admitted, and at worst very much short changed, especially vis a vis ED II kids. Compare this with historical 20% acceptance rate advantage (note: during last couple of years, RD accept rate was around 35% and ED acceptance rate was around 55-60%).

By the way, someone said GWU is very good at managing yield. Well, their aggregate yield is about 30-32% (depending on the year). When you do a back of the envelop calculation, the yield of the RD applicants, who have a freedom to choose other schools unlike ED admits, is only about 20%. The way they manage the yield was through the ED I and ED II management. The more students they admit during the ED cycle, the better their yield becomes.

This is why ED is such an important part of yield management for schools, and that's why there is an unwritten contract between the students and the school: apply early with your commitment to the school, and we will ***reward*** you. This is, this unwritten contract is broken hopelessly for the ED I kids. Note that among the name brand private schools only Harvard and Princeton did away with EA/ED: they can afford to: they have the highest yield anyway with or without ED.

It appears that all thats been said is true, however the one unknown factor that I want to throw out is the academic stats of the applicant pools. We will never know for sure, but there is a chance the ED1 pool was filled with a lot of Reach applicants who viewed ED as their only chance at getting in. Surely this year that bump was gone. I think that they will stick to the same criteria for all applicant rounds.